THE HARBOR MASTER




CHAPTER I

BLACK DENNIS NOLAN


At the back of a deep cleft in the formidable cliffs, somewhere between
Cape Race to the southward and St. John's to the northward, hides the
little hamlet of Chance Along. As to its geographical position, this is
sufficient. In the green sea in front of the cleft, and almost closing
the mouth of it, lie a number of great boulders, as if the breech in the
solid cliff had been made by some giant force that had broken and
dragged forth the primeval rock, only to leave the refuse of its toil to
lie forever in the edge of the tide, to fret the gnawing currents. At
low tide a narrow strip of black shingle shows between the nearer of
these titanic fragments and the face of the cliff. The force has been
at work at other points of the coast as well. A mile or so to the north
it has broken down and scattered seaward a great section of the cliff,
scarring the water with a hundred jagged menaces to navigation, and
leaving behind it a torn sea front and a wide, uneven beach. About three
miles to the south of the little, hidden village it has wrought similar
havoc, long forgotten ages ago.

Along this coast, for many miles, treacherous currents race and shift
continually, swinging in from the open sea, creeping along from the
north, slanting in from the southeast and snarling up (but their